Proposals have been put in place to designate the River Blackwater as a ‘blueway’, turning it into a potentially major tourist attraction.

The low-profile coach credited as the driving force behind the O’Donovans’ silver medal success once banned Gary from Skibbereen Rowing Club for a week.

Fashion shop owner Sean Murray has the measure of two of Ireland’s Olympic medal hopefuls.

Tommy Barker on an architect-designed courtyard home on the outskirts of a booming tourist hotspot.

A British peer and former 10 Downing St adviser to Gordon Brown, Wilf Stevenson, has just bought the West Cork home of former AIB chief executive David Duffy, Glebe House, for close to €2.5m.

 

A wooden boat, traditionally used only by the fishermen of the Shannon, is to sail from a West Cork town to the sea for the first time this weekend.

Tommy Barker visits Ilen River bank home of departing banker, AIB’s Chief Executive David Duffy, after its latest €1m-plus drop.

It might be heading out of sunny, holiday season, but this Baltimore modern build is a home for all seasons.

Running an arts festival in these tough economic times is challenging, says Declan McCarthy, one of the organisers of the Skibbereen Arts Festival (July 25-August 2).

Size: Sq m 121 (1,300 sq ft)

Location: Dromore, Bantry €1.25 million

WITH our backs to the Town Hall we set off down Main Street, keeping to the left pavement. Skibbereen is, arguably, the most ‘typical’ of West Cork market towns, little changed in the last century.

Size: Sq m 420 (4,500 sq ft)

Sq m: 93 (1,000 sq ft)

Location: West Cork Price: €400,000

West Skeam, in West Cork’s Roaringwater Bay, is looking for a one-in-a-million buyer. Tommy Barker reports

MAYFIELD, CORK €275,000

AIB chief executive David Duffy has put his family home in West Cork up for sale for an undisclosed sum, likely to be €4m-€5m.

A culvert trash screen which became blocked with debris during a torrential downpour, triggering a devastating flood through a Cork suburb, is to be removed.

Ken Tucker, 80 years young, last week landed a fine 17.2lb salmon on Kents, at the Blackwater Lodge Fishery.

A 50ft fin whale stranded at Baltimore pier was spared a planned euthanising by navy officials after it died naturally shortly after 11am yesterday.

Renowned angler John O’Connell, believes this year’s salmon season has been the best in the province for 40 years.

MORE than 300 adventure seekers are set to arrive in west Cork next weekend for a gruelling endurance test involving everything from running to cycling, kayaking and climbing.

ADOPTED Irishwoman, the aviatrix Daphne Pochin Mould wrote the first book about Irish mountains in 1955.

PLANNING permissions along west Cork’s Ilen river estuary are rare as waterhen’s teeth — and having a house as close to the water as Downriver Cottage is rarer still.

IT lapped up on the market last year with the guide of €1.2 million, but now, Tidewater Hideaway near Skibbereen, Co Cork, is at an asking price of €900,000 to tempt a holiday season sale.

Tommy Barker on a stunning waterside home that makes a splash.

LINKS to the past come with a tax incentivised development in Cloyne east Cork, while links to the future come with another, separate scheme in west Cork.

HOLLYWOOD star Jeremy Irons revealed his Irish wife Sinead Cusack “sacrificed” her career to devote time to bringing up their two sons.

TWO properties, on the outskirts of Skibbereen in West Cork, offer a choice of location for full-time or holiday home occupiers.

THIS is the real thing, a farmhouse with 25 acres and a milk quota, which, by the nature of its location and price, probably won’t be picked up by locals, but by second-home buyers.

IT’S been a very good July for Church Cross, Skibbereen dairy farmer Jerry Hegarty. A couple of weeks ago he won his second All-Ireland Intermediate Road-bowling title in a titanic man-to-man struggle with Ulster champion Harry Toal.

SERENITY beckons at the Grain Store on Ringarogy.

A HOUSE in Skibbereen's rural 'millionaire's row' is up for sale, at a price a bit less than a millionaire's ransom; over €450,000 is being sought for Glebe Marsh.

SET on high ground overlooking the Ilen River and the town of Skibbereen, Abbey Lodge is an imposing residence with lots of living space and mature gardens running to an acre.